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The Speed of Darkness
A Penguins of Madagascar Fanfiction Novel

Cudabear
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Disclaimer: I own nothing of this story, except for my own renditions of Manfredi, minimal OC's, other characters and Skipper's past. I don't own any character names or the title.

Chapter 1 - Prologue

He was hungry. Not in the way that a homeless man hungers for any morsel of food. Not in the way that a schoolgirl hungers for the bland food on her tray, complete with a half pint of chocolate milk. The business man who stops into a McDonald's drive-thru, too busy to take the time to sit down for his meal isn't hungry in the same way he was. No; these people hungered for food, for something to fill their growling stomachs and fill them with nourishment. That was definitely not what he was hungry for.

This hunger was deep inside him, gnawing at his inner conscious and making him want to cry out in pain and rage. He futilely searched for something to satisfy the deep void inside of him. Nothing seemed to help: material possessions, relationships, his old life. He obtained each in succession and gave them up again when they left him dissatisfied and empty. The hunger was unsatisfiable. He felt as though it was slowly breaking down his sanity and the hallucinations that plagued him throughout the night made him worry about his future.

The hunger mixed with the fear—a deadly combination. He feared for what would happen to him. He had lost everything; his sanity was all that he had left. If that was slowly leaving him, he didn't know what would happen to him. It made his stomach turn late at night as he tried to hold down his dinner. He would lay on the floor, doubled over, wanting to pain to stop. He begged God, he begged his late mother and father, he begged Johnson, he begged his lover, he even begged his own organs that the pain would cease. It never did, though; the void inside him acting like a vacuum collapsing his body in upon itself.

The figure would come to him then, stand over him and laugh at his weakness. "You're dirt," it would say to him, "Just like Johnson."

How could it say that? Johnson had been just as much of a brother to the figure as Johnson had been to him. He looked up into the figure's blue eyes. Blank and without a trace of life. Those weren't the eyes he remembered. The eyes he knew were vibrant, eager and full of courage and warmth. The eyes he gazed into now were dark and cold.

Tears would begin streaking down the feathered side of the hungry one's face. On the opposite side, they left a visible trail of rust down the hard metal plating that covered the once lush, shiny feathers on his cheek. Even he had forgotten what he looked like before. He had lost all his pictures, and anyone who could describe it to him was gone. He was a monster to himself now, and if anyone saw him they would agree. Half machine, half bird. Who would care? Sarah would, his Sarah, the one who was carrying an egg, his egg, his son or daughter. But she was gone. Just like Johnson, murdered by the apparition standing over him now.

He would lash out at the figure in grief, but the figure was always too fast for him. The apparition dodged to the left, it dodged to the right. He swung with all of his strength, but all he contacted with was air and he felt the tendons tear in his flipper. He would fall then, clutching his wounded arm and curling up into the fetal position.

"You're trash," the figure would insult, "you and Johnson both."

"He was your brother too," He would respond, heart racing from his battle with the air.

"Johnson was only a hindrance to the plan. So were you, but I allowed you to live, didn't I?" the apparition would return.

The words would cut deep into him and made him bleed tears. He would feel the pain as each syllable sliced through his flesh and made feelings of hurt and betrayal bubble to the surface. These feelings would mix together and anger would result. Not the anger that a siblings feel towards each other when the other is being selfish or what a teenager feels when he gets grounded for slacking off. Those are short lived and always overcome by the much greater feelings of love and forgiveness. This anger he felt came from deeper within him then that. He felt no love, no forgiveness, to ward off the anger. The tears would dry and the pain would disappear. He would begin to quiver and then convulse, but not from sobbing.

He would then rise, the anger filling him with newfound confidence and his beak would be twisted into a wide grin. A knife would appear in his hand, then a dagger, then a sword. He would slash and stab at the apparition until it was nothing but an unrecognizable pile of blood and flesh and feathers. He would watch the apparition come back together, the act of the blade undone. He would grasp the stock of the pistol in his hand, the butt of the rifle, the trigger of the sub-automatic machine gun. He would press the barrel into the side of the figure's head, licking the sides of his beak as he heard the pointless pleas. He would depress the trigger, sending lead into the apparition's head again and again.

He would laugh then. A deep and dark laugh full of hatred. He would laugh and laugh until his jaw hurt. He laughed as he swung the machete, he laughed as the blood pool mixed with his tears on the floor. He laughed out of joy, accomplishment, and insanity. He laughed for Johnson, he laughed for Sarah, he laughed for his unborn child.

That is what satisfied his hunger. Revenge. Killing the one who took away everything he ever had to live for. The black and white body laying below him, crystal blue eyes open and full of fear, was the one who took it all. That was his target. Now he had taken it's life, and he felt no regret. It was the one thing that satisfied his hunger, filled the void within him. The pain was gone and he no longer prayed for it to stop. He walked away from the black and white figure, slung a backpack that was on the ground near him over his back and walked out of the crawl space.

As he walked, the rifle, the sword, the pistol disappeared from his hand and the bloodstains disappeared from his feathers. The body faded into nothingness in the crawlspace and the dust returned as if there had been no struggle at all. All that remained were the pools of tears and the box of a stolen fillet-o-fish.

His target was near. He could sense it; he was sure of it. He waddled into the empty, dimly lit train station, no activity other than an empty subway train parked in the tunnel. He proceeded onto it and crammed himself into a storage compartment beneath a seat. He found a crumpled up map and opened it up, recognizing one phrase and one phrase only: Central Park Zoo.

He was close, and his beak curled into a smile as he twirled his imaginary katana in his hands. It wouldn't be long now.